In a blog post today, Delicious says “No, we are not shutting down.” But they aren’t staying at Yahoo either.
Yesterday, it was all but confirmed that Yahoo! was sunsetting Delicious, one of the most popular social bookmarking services. They do admit that they are not a strategic fit at Yahoo!, and are looking for a home outside of the company.
From the blog, “We’re actively thinking about the future of Delicious and we believe there is a home outside the company that would make more sense for the service and our users. We’re in the process of exploring a variety of options and talking to companies right now. And we’ll share our plans with you as soon as we can.”
In the words of the Hitchhiker’s Guide, “Don’t Panic.” Delicious says they are maintaining the site and encourage users to stay active.
Yesterday, Yahoo made an official statement:
Part of our organizational streamlining involves cutting our investment in underperforming or off-strategy products to put better focus on our core strengths and fund new innovation in the next year and beyond. We continuously evaluate and prioritize our portfolio of products and services, and do plan to shut down some products in the coming months such as Yahoo! Buzz, our Traffic APIs, and others. We will communicate specific plans when appropriate.
Why would Yahoo want to sunset (a.k.a. kill) Delicious? The domain name itself may be worth $1million, although serial entrepreneur Jason Calacanis disagrees. While Yahoo might not want it, the Internet support for Delicious has been phenomenal. In fact, yesterday supporters created the Twitter account, “Save Delicious,” which already has over 400 followers.
What do you see in the future for Delicious?
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